Energy efficiency has become an area of interest for energy consuming devices. One class of energy consuming devices is lighting devices. Light emitting diodes (LEDs) show promise as energy efficient light sources for lighting devices. For some LED-based lighting assemblies, the light emitted from the light source is input to a light guide and light extracting elements specularly extract the light from the light guide in a defined direction. But visual artifacts may appear at the major surface(s) of the illuminated light guide and can present an issue. Control over light output distribution also continues to be an issue for lighting devices that use LEDs or similar light sources.